It rained all day Saturday but the show, in this case, the Lighted Yacht Parade, went on as scheduled.
The bad weather meant we scrapped our plan to play Christmas songs live, which we did last year, crowded around a microphone in the cockpit, a JBL speaker lashed to the mast. Instead, Janet and Jeff met us at the house early to do a quick recording of 'Rockin Around the Christmas Tree' that we could instead broadcast from a speaker. Kwame set a Blue Yeti mic to ‘omni’, plopped it on the living room table, and we circled up with the chart Janet made. We ran through the song three times and called it a take.
It was raining as we motored to the start near Coast Guard Island where a number of other boats were already drifting, lights blinking and twinkling through the raindrops. We couldn’t tell if everyone who entered had come out, but there were definitely fewer smaller craft — kayaks and canoes and sculls — out this year than last. Likewise, a much smaller number of viewers were watching from shore. A few clusters of brave people with umbrellas huddled near Grand Marina. A smattering of other enthusiastic folks stood on the docks as we made our way up the estuary. Encinal and Oakland yacht clubs were full as were the water-facing restaurants and docked boats. We cheered and waved at anyone we saw, Kwame navigating, Janet and I propping the speaker — tented with a plastic trash bag and hooked to a laptop below deck — up with our legs, while Jeff fiddled with the volume control. Some of the larger yachts blew their horns at us as we passed.
It was equal parts exhilarating, gratifying and ridiculous. I dressed in long underwear and rain pants, a wool sweater, vest and foulies before heading to the marina and it wasn't overkill. Every time I leaned over, a bunch of water spilled off my jacket onto the deck. I pulled out my phone to take pictures but my phone was so wet it took some doing to get my camera to open. By the time we pulled back into our slip, the rain had finally stopped. Everyone and everything on deck was soaked but our lights were undimmed.
An intrepid parade viewer, Cindy Warner, took video from shore and managed to capture Espresso as we passed. You can hear both the rain coming down, our recording and our cheers:
At the same time we were parading on the Alameda-Oakland estuary, the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor was hosting its own ‘Deck the Hulls’ parade. They also had a great turnout: My friend Sally was crew on her friend Barry Bennett’s boat which featured live steel drums!